STORY BY rosalind early, ab ‘03 ILLUSTRATION BY max temescu, bfa ‘13, @maxtemescu

superhero comics are specific to the american culture that

produced them in the late 1930s. they grew out of a

struggle with modernism: the loss of frontier and rugged individuality. the superhero

myth helped us process that.

i’m a rugged

individual, but in an urban

setting. i’m also selfless and an archetype of

american values.

superhero films and comics also express

the larger geopolitics of our age. now, we don’t go to war

with a country. we fight a supervillain.

unlimited wealth, an army of soldiers

ready to die for me and a hideout

in the remote mountains. i sound

like osama bin laden, but i’m really dr. deadly.

we talk about fighting

saddam hussein or manuel noriega with overwhelming force,

or as i like to call it, “effortless efficacy”

like a superhero.

they say this will be over in 21 days.

the mythology of the cold war was the western. that’s why

they were so popular.

need any help here?

i’ve got it, thanks.

westerns feature two opposing societies in an apocalyptic, twilight struggle: cowboys and native americans. it

resembled how americans felt about fighting

the communists.

i also help people wrestle with the posthuman-- the technological and medical advances that are changing

human capabilities and lives.

on top of that, marvel connects all of its

characters and universes. it’s a successful commercial strategy from the comics that they’ve

translated into films.

and the genre shows no signs of slowing down.

i‘m PETER COOGAN, a coordinator at the brown school and author of superhero: the secret origin of a genre. there’s more to comics than you think...”